Sunday, March 29, 2009

Xiao Maxian: Cold Light

It carries troops and grainsPlants sweep past swiftLakes, swamps reflect cold lightIce mirrors the curved lineOf a running leopard—acceleration bumps on the iron sheetSpurting faint glitters of fireworkAll the compassionate cherished under the soilFurther down below the rocksIn the deeper places lava is suffocatingSouls lost in night are picking up trains on their return journey

My PS: The poet has in her mind that the train in the poem is a metaphor for state apparatus, hence it carries troops and grains. Plants therefore refer to the forms of organic life, which are left behind by the insanely dashing forward train. It seems that the poet has too much to say out and she loses control of the poem. Whatever the leopard may represent, the lines lose their energy and speed after the “acceleration bumps on the iron sheet.”

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Poetry (in Chinese)

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Fan (family name), born in 1965 in China, currently in Singapore. There are in this blog: Classical Chinese Poems, Contemporary Chinese Poems, Sylvia Plath in English and Chinese, My own poems in two Languages.... All the translations are mine. My published poetry book Faltering Words contains my selected poem suites not in English.
在此博客上可读到：中国古典诗、中国当代诗、普拉斯诗歌原文和汉译、我自己的双语诗歌。这里的翻译都是我自己做的。除了翻译几本学术著作外，我还有英文学术论文出版于牛津大学；另外已出诗集《期期之言》（组诗选）。